It is a general practice in the paper industry to produce a continuous sheet or web of paper which is wound onto large spools. In order to have a continuous operation it is, of course, necessary to have a system for instantaneously switching from winding the web of paper onto a full roll to an empty roll, particularly at modern speeds of paper production. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,461,246 there is shown a method of feeding a tape onto the rotating empty roll core and causing it to be spirally wrapped on that core as it stretches tight across the travelling web of paper and cuts the paper, with the cut edge being led onto the empty roll supported by the cutting tape. Subsequent improvements have dealt with methods of stringing the tape for cutting and feeding, and the use of various types of tapes, as shown for example in U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,258 where there is described a tape made of repulpable paper woven into a tape which did not interfere with the paper making process since the paper wound adjacent the roll is waste and is recycled. The most recent improvement is disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,659,029 which describes the use of a repulpable paper fiber tape in an elongated guideway to direct the tape under a travelling web of paper and direct the tape into the nip of an empty spool so as to cut the web of paper and start it rolling onto the empty spool.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improvement in feeding the tape onto the empty spool. It is another object to provide such a system that can be operated from a remote control so as to avoid any possibility of interfering with the travelling web of paper. Other objects will appear from the more detailed description which follows.